Monday, March 05, 2007

Quitting is for quitting quitters

Man, I picked a hell of a day to start cutting back on the caffeine.

See, way back in the day, before I was the Pops to the little howler monkey known as Henry, I decided one day that I wasn't comfortable with how dependant I had become on caffeine to wake up and be alert and function. Just didn't seem right somehow. So over time, I eased my coffee intake way back and finally got to where I only had a cup every now and then on the occasion that some especially good stuff was readily available.

Enter baby. After Henry was born, sleep left our midst for a little while, so I found myself fiending for the Joe. I was like the junkie who'd been clean a little while calling up his old dealer. I could practically hear my trusty Houston Rockets mug mocking me. Yeah, you thought you was done with Old Joe, but I knew you couldn't hack it without me. I knew you'd be back. Pretty soon, I was even drinking the sludge they serve up at my office. I needed to function and Joe had what I needed.

Then the other night, our friends Brandon and Courtney (collectively known as Bratney) took us out to dinner, and the conversation turned somehow to coffee, which it turns out they've cut way back on for reasons nearly identical to my own from way back when. And it occurred to me, now that sleep has returned to our house, even if not as a permanent resident, mayhaps it's time I start easing off my habit. I was, you might say, inspired.

So today was my first day with no coffee, just a couple of cups of black tea. Compared to a typical day's countless cups of coffee, I thought this was pretty good. But like I said, it was a suck of a day to go messing with the chemicals my body was accustomed to. First off, it was a Monday, and I am among the Mon. - Fri. crowd. Add to that I had to sit through an intensely boring hour and a half presentation about some Microsoft product tool thing whatever...something about increasing efficiency, facilitating better communication, central repository, blah blah zzzzzzzz. I kept nodding off through the whole thing. I was certain I was going to wake up on the floor surrounded by a bunch of IT geeks. "Is he okay?" "I don't know, kick him." Follow that with more meetings. We just love our meetings at my office, probably because we love each other so much.

But I made it, and hopefully tomorrow is a little easier. Hey, this is nothing compared to quitting smoking.

5 comments:

You realize the caffeine count between tea and coffee is not that different right?

I believe coffee is something like nearly 2%, while tea averages out at over 1%. I haven't sold tea and coffee in a while, so my numbers aren't totally accurate.

I'm just trying to keep you in the fold. I love coffee and I really need it in the morning. I like having a vice and as far as vices go it's not a bad one. I don't smoke, chase women and I drink in very moderate amounts (relatively). I gotta have something!

Yeah, maybe so, but I think I'll have an easier time stepping away from two cups of tea vs. a whole pot of coffee (approx. usual intake). But I hear you, a good vice is nice to have around. Maybe I'll take up extreme sports.

I recommend cutting down gradually. At the end you will be free of the caffeine addiction and you won't have lost your job:) And then every once in a while you can have decaf and it will have the same effect caffeine used to have! I cut down over two weeks, going from 2 cups a day to 0 by cutting out a quarter of a cup a day. I highly recommend it. And I swore I'd never give up my little caffeine monkey, but I did!

As far as The Wife knows there is a pretty good difference between the caffeine content in black tea and coffee. But just in case I got you the Yerba Mate instead - it is a natural stimulant. You know, like cocaine.